The present disclosure relates to a wireless communication device, a program, a wireless communication method, and a wireless communication system.
The 3G (third-generation) mobile phone service started in 2002 in Japan. Although exchange of small size packets such as voice or email was a main application initially, download of larger size packets such as download of music files or viewing of shared videos has become increasingly popular since introduction of HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) or the like.
Further, with an increase in downloaded packet size, expansion on the side of a wireless network has been also made, and the HSPA+ service that achieves speeds up to 21 Mbps in 3GPP, and the Mobile WiMAX service that achieves speeds up to 40 Mbps in IEEE started. Further, in 3GPP, LTE (Long Term Evolution) that uses OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) for downlink, just like Mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), is scheduled to start in the latter half of 2010, and 4G (LTE-Advanced) is scheduled to start around 2015. By the start of such services, it is expected to achieve speeds up to 1 Gbps in a semi-fixed state and speeds up to 100 Mbps in a mobile environment.
Because various wireless communication services that offer a high communication rate are scheduled to start as described above, a scheme for effective use of a wireless resource in a heterogeneous wireless environment would become increasingly important in the coming years. For example, a wireless communication device that is compatible with a plurality of wireless communication services can select a wireless communication service to use based on the maximum communication rate of each wireless communication service or a received signal strength. However, when traffic is concentrated on a wireless communication service with a high maximum communication rate, a case is assumed where the effective communication rate (actual communication rate) of the wireless communication service decreases, and as a result, the effective communication rate of another wireless communication service becomes higher. Note that Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-298484 contains description about a wireless communication device such as a mobile phone.